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We seem to be waywardly trusting of Big Oil here; a sick mix of daddy complex and pseudo-symbiotic co-dependency.

PT Parnell: Alaska Big Oil's Ringmaster ﻿

The tenets of Phineas Taylor Barnum have been hyperactive here in Alaska. You remember P.T., right? We're all familiar with his well known modicum on suckers. Have a look at the Section A-3 image in the Wednesday Anchorage Daily News at our Alaska Barnum incarnate’ s cheesy grin as he laid ink on his divine masterpiece of tomfoolery; Senate Bill SB-21. That picture of him dubiously surrounded by working class Janes and Joes at the Dena'ina Convention Center in Anchorage yesterday leaves little, if any doubt in any objective Alaskan’s mind about another appropriate analogous adage; the old one of foxes and henhouses.

Governor Parnell; or Seanoco – the moniker we Alaskans less endeared to the governor’s visionary corporatocracy brand for modernity might be inclined to utilize in referencing him – made his indelible mark on his document of significance in his quest of what appears a sure-fire-fast-track path as a future ConocoPhillips CEO or BP consultant. And, in typical ringmaster fashion, he managed to hoodwink some willing partners in the Alaska Senate into his three-ring pimp circus. After all, as P.T. would say, “Without promotion, something terrible happens...Nothing!” So, with Napoleonic fervor and matching stature, our governor held a huge press conference Tuesday to sign into law what will ultimately prove Alaska’s death knell. The end of the innocence.

I have lived and worked in this amazing place for over nine years and am fortunate to have a job that takes me all over its phenomenal landscapes. But the peoplescape in addition to its jaw-dropping beauty is what makes this place so grandiose. I hail from Oklahoma and Texas where oil has been king since before Alaska was born. So why do Oklahoma and Texas not have serious money in their state coffers, like Alaska? Simple; they didn’t have Jay Hammond for a governor…or Sarah Palin, for that matter. Hammond and Palin both understood that turning your state into Swiss cheese for Big Oil has lasting implications if the state money coffers run dry. No money; no voice at the bargaining table. It’s truly just that simple. And the same principle applies for the mining industry too. I witnessed that one with coal in Oklahoma and Texas too. Holes in the ground with nothing but a few jobs in return; holes in the state pockets. When you give any resource extraction industry massive subsidies and demand nothing in return, nothing is what you get. A few average-paying jobs are all they have to show nowadays -- very few . These are worthy considerations on another extraction behemoth -- the giant mining prospect; “Pebble Partnership.”

We seem to be waywardly trusting of Big Oil here; a sick mix of daddy complex and pseudo-symbiotic co-dependency. The unhealthy crack of these corporate ringmaster whips down South in the Lower 48 should be enough to garner Alaska's attention. Unlike the ringmasters, Alaska citizens want what is permanently best for Alaska.

That will not happen if we fail to overturn SB 21. This measure will eventually result in the Alaska proletariat paying a state tax…yes -– the dreaded three-letter word. Sean Parnell isn’t going to tell you that ugly part about how once the state treasury is drained in his ludicrous giveaway with no promise of reinvestment from Big Oil in Alaska, the onus of state government will be handed from Big Oil as we enjoy it now, to us –- we will almost immediately become state income tax payers. And a continuance of our beloved Permanent Fund? Forget about it.

Let’s push SB-21 recall petition signatures fervently with this more Alaskan version of a P.T. Barnum notion in mind: “Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” Because most Alaskans I talk to across this gorgeous state believe our governor and his ilk see things the other way around and will stop at nothing for their future nests to be lushly feathered at the expense of all who came before them and all who would seek to truly be proud to call this incredible place home.

Numbers Appear Fudged in Standard Testing

Anchorage Daily News | July 18, 2006 | COMPASS: Points of view from the communityby SAM RHODES An Associated Press computer analysis uncovered some revelations about education. The AP caught the federal government and states playing a game of hide and seek with the No Child Left Behind Act. It seems the feds and the states shirk their responsibility to kids and parents by cheating on the law's requirement that children of all races show academic progress.By 2014, all public school students must be proficient in reading and math as measured by standardized testing. But in a standardized testing methodology that could best be characterized as half a sandwich shy of a school lunch, the AP found that not all public school kids are required to take the tests.

As a former union representative for teachers, I once listened attentively to various educator woes all over the country on various assignments. Weak wages, angry parents, lame health insurance and wayward students were all vented. But standardized testing was teachers' top pet peeve.

Let there be no doubt: Standardized testing is the mythical mystic elixir to cure education ills. Consumed in gluttonous gulps by most Americans, this panacea produces no Harry Potter results for students.

However, it can magically transform average people into governors and presidents. We swallowed a large dosage in Texas. Think back to a campaigning former governor proclaiming from sea to shining sea that, if elected, he would be "The Education President."

That promise proved to be campaign rhetoric. Fear now inescapably takes center stage, ingraining our transfixed post-Sept. 11 conscience. The education president now burns along an endless campaign trail fueled by Rove-directed spin and bombards us with puppet-like sound bites crafted almost exclusively around terror.

Let's examine an old Texas Tall Tale. Standardized testing has served as the barometer of student success in Texas for many years. Remember George Bush touting what he called "The Houston Miracle" in his first presidential term?

I worked as a teacher union representative for eight years in Texas and followed the Houston Chronicle's reporting on the alleged "miracle."

Back in the golden honeymoon days, Rod Paige was appointed to the cabinet post of Education Secretary by George W. Bush. For miracle success achieved in improving student test scores in his prior capacity as Houston Independent School District superintendent, Paige was awarded the job. Given the miracle he performed in America's fourth-largest city, Paige's magic would cure our education ills and serve as the model for all of America.

But it turns out the miracle ingredients were full of phony numbers feverishly cooked up like a good ole' east Texas shrimp boil. Dropouts were never counted. (Sounds like an old tried and true family recipe for fuzzy math.)

Let's not forget to add another ingredient to this bizarre half-baked equation. A number of fortunate school principals and other Houston ISD administrators received hefty bonuses based on the inflated success rate numbers resulting from student TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge And Skills) testing. But teachers never received a dime for the phantom improvements.

And spice up this dubious dish with the fact that the parents of low-achieving students -- many of whom were minorities--were counseled by Houston ISD administrators to keep their kids at home on TAKS testing days.

Houston ISD later claimed publicly that the low achievers' parents were counseled by administrators purely out of compassion. According to the Houston Chronicle, the parents were told their kids need not suffer hopeless embarrassment in what HISD lovingly termed "self-esteem trauma."

When only the best take the test, the numbers logically improve. Even a blind hog finds that acorn.

Rod Paige is now just another vague memory, like the "education president." So goes the Texas Tall Tale of the "Houston Miracle."

The politically expedient epidemic known as standardized testing continues its unabated spread like the elusive pandemic bird flu. Its boiled-over system of cooked-up corruption serves as a major reason that reliably proven SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores continue their plummet downward in public schools.

Sam Rhodes worked as a teacher union representative in Texas and now lives in Anchorage.

Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News

Guest Blog | Roger McKenzie | UNISON | UK

We are the ones we have been waiting for!Over in the United States right now trade unions are being subjected to massive attacks. In States such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida attempts are being made to remove the right of trade unions to collective bargaining on pay and other terms and conditions of employment such as health and safety and pensions.

Wisconsin is the real vanguard in this assault on workers rights. The recently elected governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, gave no indication to the electorate that he was planning to introduce such radical proposals in a State that was one of the first in their nation to recognize public service trade unionism. This sounds erringly familiar when you consider that we also have politicians in this country who seem to think its ok to conceal their wildest plans from the electorate before an election. For us we can point firstly to the raising of student fees and now to the proposals for the wholescale privatisation of the NHS.

What we also share in common with the US is widespread resistance to not only the proposals themselves but also the way that some politicians have obviously adopted the tactic of deceiving the electorate in the knowledge that their wilder plans would not be supported. Just last weekend the US witnessed its largest ever labour movement demonstration. Nearly 200,000 people, demonstrated in Madison, Wisconsin against the proposed new law. This followed weeks of demonstrations and an occupation of the capitol building.

Week after week in villages, towns and cities across the West Midlands, and in other parts of the UK, people are standing up against public sector cuts and the contempt that they feel some politicians have for them. At the end of this Month, in London, we are also likely to see the largest trade union organised demonstration in our history.

What is for certain is that on both sides of the Atlantic people have realized that there is no knight in shining armour waiting to come to our rescue. We have to organise ourselves. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

(This article first appeared in the Birmingham Mail on 16 March 2011)

March for public services on 26 March 2011. Join us on theTUC demo in London. Go to http://www.unison.org.uk/26marchfor more information and to register your interest.

Hipocrisy Knows No Bounds | Sam Rhodes | 12 March 2011

Corporate fat cat Art Thompson knows a supermajority of the protesters in Madison are Wisconsin citizens as well as union member registered voters. Thompson's own elite collective corporate brotherhood, the John Birch Society, must face some public relations consequences brought on by their corporate flagship. Koch Industries have themselves forced collective action upon Wisconsin. Public employee union members in Madison and across America are demonstrating as voters, voicing their displeasure to their elected officials; their duly elected public servants - a right guaranteed by state constitutions. Democracy in action.And public employee union members are voters in heavy concentration. As a public employee unionist and member I personally have regularly voted for 35 years and held union membership for over 25 of those.So in corporate countermeasure, Art Thompson offers this constitutional devolutionary logic: "If the public unions win their battle, the voter will no longer stand a chance - a chance of controlling their public servants."

Thompson, Harry Bradley pictured above, and a host of other ultra elites including one of the founding members, Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in America, formed for their collective benefit the John Birch Society. It was founded in 1958 by Robert W. Welch Jr. (1899–1985).

Welch viewed collectivism as the supreme threat to Western Civilization, and saw liberals as "secret communist traitors" who provided cover for the gradual process of collectivism, with the ultimate goal of replacing the nations of western civilization with a one-world socialist government. "There are many stages of welfarism, socialism, and collectivism in general," he wrote, "but Communism is the ultimate state of them all, and they all lead inevitably in that direction."The John Birch Society is headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, with local chapters in all 50 states. The organization owns American Opinion Publishing, which publishes the journal The New American.Collective corporate hypocrisy in action.May I offer a parting quote: "Our forefathers did not like democracy. Said it was the worst form of government known to man." John Birch Society CEO Art Thompson | 25 February | 2011

Public Sector Unions: We Need a Yellow Rose

sam rhodes march 2011

Myth is time's most powerful tool. It has motivated misguided conquests often ceremoniously misunderstood and promulgated as victories in the name of truth throughout history since the Great Pyramids and beyond. Modern scholars refer to Greek mythology and study it, attempting to understand the complexities of the religious and political institutions of Ancient Greece in search of understanding its civilization, and to gain understanding of the nature of myth-making itself.

Myth never ends. As long as humans communicate, myth will forever be the impetus for replacing inconvenient historic truths with rhetoric and historic fable. I would ask your indulgence to fast-forward to San Jacinto, Texas: March of 1836. I offer into evidence The Yellow Rose of Texas.

In a fascinating, little-noted article for Texas Escapes written last April by Texas author, poet and blogger, Linda Kirkpatrick, the author lays bare the multitude of rumor-laced speculations associated with the Yellow Rose of Texas as a poem, and the story itself.

Linda's article, entitled The Mysterious Yellow Rose of Texas, reveals that three very different versions of the poem that later became a hit song exist. The first, written in 1836 by a black author identified simply as H. B. C., referring twice to himself in the context of the poem as a "darkey." Later, the second, a version called, “Emily, the Maid of Morgan’s Point” appeared. Confederate soldiers replaced the original lyrics with more pertinent references to Civil War generals and marched to the tune, “The Yellow Rose of Texas” during the Civil War. The most recent and widely known is a 1955 song recorded by Mitch Miller, lauded as a historic interpretation of a mythical biracial woman known as "Emily."

But as history has an inconvenient habit of doing, it appears two women named Emily migrated to Texas via New York, landed at Galveston on the same passenger ship, The Flash, on the same day in December, 1835. It is the complicated story of Emily D. West Morgan and Emily West de Zavala, both of color, both fitting the legendary description of a beautiful woman. Both allegedly snapped up by an opium-crazed Santa Anna as he chased Sam Houston across the Mexico-Texas territory, post-Alamo. In any event, Emily Morgan is largely attributed as the savior of Texas among most Texans. Both myths extol the notion that "Emily" seduced Santa Anna, leaving him unready for Sam Houston's attack at San Jacinto, or that a young man known legendarily as "Turner," who many assumed to be her son, snuck away from Mexican captors to warn Sam Houston of Santa Anna's massive army as it approached.

Three poems; each with entirely different meaning and two women with the same name helped shape what many believe to be Texas history. Some educators pass these legends along and test students on such mythology as interpretive history. But as Linda Kirkpatrick acknowledges in relation to all these untidy accounts of Texas history in her astutely written article, "no one knows for sure." So, the beginning of the second largest state in America is riddled in myth.

Now, public employees finds themselves at their own San Jacinto. They face a public who, like Santa Anna, is bespelled by a seductress of misinformation and mythology. But if one wishes to be better informed, one must research beyond mass media for answers closer to the truth. One cannot judge the moral compass of people, politicians or corporations by what they say. You must follow the money.

If you dare ask these questions, much will be learned to divine truth from fiction or perception: Where do they get their money and where do they spend their money?

In this modern world, money and information are the real change makers. And no matter how slickly the message spins, it cannot hide from where the dollars are accepted and spent.

Public sector unions receive their income from workers who pay membership dues or agency fees for representation. Membership dues pay for operation of the union, as do agency fees. Any political activities the union wishes to participate in are done so through donations from its members to a political action committee (PAC) of their peers. Federal law prohibits the use of union dues for political purposes. Unions are obliged to report every penny they spend in PAC funds, and are extremely limited by IRS regulations in comparison to individuals or corporations in regard to the amounts they can spend.

As for collective bargaining, this honorable process is not a budget-breaking proposition for any state or political sub-division thereof. In fact, as governor, the so-called father of modern conservatism, Ronald Reagan, permitted collective bargaining for California. Would Reagan have allowed a system to exist in his beloved California that undermines budgets?

Public employee unions have no power to negotiate wages or benefits beyond the employer's ability to pay. And, just like their private sector counterparts, why would they? Having negotiated collective bargaining agreements for both sectors on the union side of the table personally, I feel quite qualified to remark on the matter. These are irrefutable truths, not myth.

But America is mostly a non-research kind of place whose inhabitants look to magazines, television and newspapers to get their news; a veritable breeding ground zero for myth. Despite computers, most prefer to be told what to believe, but bother not to research what they have been told. So the tenets from the voice whose rhetoric shouts loudest and most often, becomes its conventional wisdom. For the 110th straight month, FOX was the most-watched news channel in total viewers for both total day and primetime markets. By comparison in the major market news universe, MSNBC scored 26th and CNN rated 29th.

FOX has friends with money. Since 2003, Koch Industries have completed more than $32 billion in acquisitions and investments, and nearly $11 billion in capital expenditures. David and Charles Koch are the benefactors, tied as the fifth wealthiest people in the nation, worth a combined $43 billion. They have, since 2005, donated $31.3 billion to organizations that fight climate change or deny its existence. In 2008, David Koch donated a hundred million dollars to modernize Lincoln Center’s New York State Theatre building, which now bears his name. He has given twenty million to the American Museum of Natural History, whose dinosaur wing is named for him.

Other prominent billionaires have stepped their political activities up as well. Oprah Winfrey has provided a televised forum and pledged undisclosed sums to former Washington, D.C. superintendent of schools, Michelle Rhee and her Students First organization. Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates has pledged millions to assist Rhee's cause. In Rhee's mind, teacher unions are the sole blame for the alleged decay of public schools, measured only by yearly student results on standardized tests. Measuring the ability of teachers cannot possibly be divined by the snapshot results of students tested once per year. That formula is not even a decent indicator of the progress of the student, much less the teacher.

And the Koch's have their own political party. That is not a myth either. It's not just an affiliation; they own the Tea Party. Charles Lewis from the Center for Public Integrity recently told New Yorker Magazine's Jane Mayer "The Koch's are on a whole different level. There's no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I've been in Washington since Watergate, and I've never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times."

So, as we consider the powers of myth and money, the evidence for money as the supreme agent of change appears self-evident. Extreme wealth is never a bad thing in the hands of those who would use it for purposes that shape positive change. Conversely, extreme wealth possessed by forces who would extract basic rights from average citizens in exchange for a higher profit at any cost are the Santa Anna of this nation's public employee unions.

If myth is in command, I cannot foresee a modern-day Sam Houston riding to the unions' rescue anytime soon. Maybe the best public employees can hope for is a mythical Emily Morgan, Texas history's Yellow Rose.

Watch the Gap Sam Rhodes

Exiled former Tunisian President Ben Ali [Getty Images]

As we find ourselves in awe of brave democracy unfolding before our eyes in the streets of Cairo, Suez and Alexandria, we should remind ourselves that this recent movement’s beginnings were not hatched in Cairo.In fact, the beginnings of this “uprising” emanated in Tunisia with protesters taking to the ancient streets after 26 year-old street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi of Sidi Bouzid set himself ablaze after years of harassment from Tunisian Police. Al Jazeera reports: “The harassment finally became too much for the young man on December 17. That morning, it became physical. A policewoman confronted him on the way to market. She returned to take his scales from him, but Bouazizi refused to hand them over. They swore at each other, the policewoman slapped him and, with the help of her colleagues, forced him to the ground.The officers took away his produce and his scale. Publically humiliated, Bouazizi tried to seek recourse. He went to the local municipality building and demanded to a meeting with an official.He was told it would not be possible and that the official was in a meeting. "It's the type of lie we're used to hearing," said his friend. With no official wiling to hear his grievances, the young man brought paint fuel, returned to the street outside the building, and set himself on fire.”But Bouazizi’s extreme actions were a watershed signal, not only for Tunisians, but people of the Middle-East and the world. While this young, frustrated street vendor’s self-torching held profound meaning for himself and the battle against repression of his own country, a much more widespread theme loomed within the core. Bouazizi’s livelihood was threatened. And although government corruption inflamed Bouazizi’s situation, it was not the lone culprit to set this revolutionary stage. Whether we examine Tunisia, Egypt or even the United States, these nations find themselves in deep, dark economic peril. And they have a not so unique systemic similarity: their citizenries are feeling politically and economically marginalized, regardless of multitudes of possible political affiliations. We all see articles in publications from various regions proclaiming economic and political unrest daily, nations of every stripe. Disembarking a New Jersey train a couple of summers ago, I took a photograph of the brightly painted yellow and red warning next to the track: Watch the Gap. It meant something to me then. It warned me of imminent danger between the place I presently stood and the place taking me to my future. And now it means a whole lot more. When we watch the latest CNN or read the most recent Al Jazeera reports from the Middle-East, we are witnessing the democracy-unifying gap unfurl. The protesters words and actions speak symbolically -- just as unwitting to many of them, as it was for Bouzazi -- against the hopeless marginalization of all people who feel legitimate public policy and economic security have passed them permanently by, and have chosen to do all they can within their power to reverse the devastation.And so a young, disenfranchised Tunisian has awakened a sleeping giant. Mohamed Bouzazi has set not only himself, but the world afire in a rampantly spreading blaze.

In the Name of Love Forty-Three Years Later Sam Rhodes

All I have been able to think about from the moment my eyes opened today, is that U2 refrain: "Early morning, April 4, shot rang out in the Memphis sky. Free at last, they took your life, they could not take your pride. In the name of love, what more in the name of love?"While I rejoice today with all Americans on his birthday his many years of human justice, spiritual wisdom and civil rights and salute the body of work of the man , I still am restlessly haunted by a spring morning at age nine. I awoke at my grandmother's house forty-three years ago when we heard it on her transistor radio. They took his life. We turned on the 19 inch black and white TV. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been assassinated after marching in solidarity with striking sanitation workers in Memphis, six hundred miles away. The atrociously weird pain neither of us could describe felt as if it had happened right next door. My grandmother was a school cafeteria worker who dutifully prepared and served up children's meals with a smile and enthusiasm all her working life. We cried our eyes dry and red.Forty-three years. When you say that aloud and weigh the progress we've made, do you feel satisfied we have come far enough? If the unequivocal answer is no, you're my kind. I can't stop pacing that cage. But I refuse not to count the possibilities. Why?As accounted in historic Biblical content Dr. King so beloved and often recited about Christ before him, we who are old enough witnessed first-hand Martin peacefully change the hateful mindset and ill intentions of many. Miraculous? Not sure about you, but I can't recall in my fifty-two years any other mortal pulling anything miraculous of that magnitude off in a while.Inspirational? Enough for me. I work for the union Dr. King supported in Memphis for dignity and in protest of abhorrent working conditions. Their campaign: I AM A MAN.

Counting possibilties, that was Dr. King. On his birthday: In the name of love, what more in the name of love?

A Rare Disagreement With Robert Reich Sam Rhodesdecember 9, 2010

Sarah Palin: We just can’t quit talking about her. Just last month, Gallup released a poll indicating a surge in Palin’s national unfavorable approval rating to 52%; her favorability waning analogous to the hours of Alaska winter sunlight. (1)

On December 8th, the Anchorage Daily News published a Daily News Opinion article by former US Secretary of Labor and professor of public policy at the University of California Berkeley, Robert Reich entitled “Palin Sets Strategy Outside the Mainstream.” The insightful and wonderfully written article offered some amazing reflections on past historic perspectives as well as insightful divining of economic and political landscapes we are likely to encounter in future America. What professor Reich may be missing here is that Sarah Palin believes she has constructed and resides in a "hockey mom" mainstream of her own making.

Professor Reich is resolute in his belief that the former Alaska governor will vie for the office of President of the United States in 2012, 2016, or 2020. He makes compelling arguments. His vast experience is beyond reproach and I have only one possible angle to counter his beliefs here. I don't mind admitting, I'm out of my league. But perhaps an Alaska perspective can add something to the discourse.

As a public employee unionist and democrat for about a quarter century, you might think my view is slanted to the left -- it is. And I’m not alone. Many Alaskans just like me worked relentlessly in blazing cold weather to help former Alaska governor Tony Knowles defeat Ms. Palin’s 2006 gubernatorial bid. We were proud of our efforts. We believed in the man. We got creamed. Her then-centrist, populist appeal yielded a bumper crop of Palin mainstream hockey mom supporters and hunters from every hamlet in Alaska -- of all political stripes.

But during the past year in Palin’s own Alaska, approval ratings supporting Sarah making a 2012 run for the roses measured woefully sub-Obama in this conservative-leaning state. By general measure, the Alaska electorate splits almost in perfect thirds, (R/D/I) by political persuasion. USAToday.com’s blog, The Oval, which offers daily updates on the Obama presidency, denotes a February 2010 poll from Alaska’s notoriously conservative Dittman Research Group, which was also reproduced for resource material by the popular progressive blog, The Mudflats. Both agree on the numbers: 17% of Alaskans in the poll said they want her to run for president. Another 36% said she should not run for president, but help other candidates.(2)Since 2006, Alaskans have been bombarded mercilessly with all things Palin, some of which have proved bizarre. Now, the entire nation endures the unending circus via TV, computer or magazine. No isolated corner of the nation is a Palin-free zone. Professor Reich’s observations on her smiling, folksy, but passive-aggressive demeanor and the whole phenomena Palin in general, are not misguided or distorted. She is in fact the most intriguing political player in recent memory. Conversely, her lack of will to finish a full term as Alaska governor will not go unnoticed and will be exploited at some point if she runs for president. She quit. But all this ever-increasing perpetual national exposure she is receiving halfway through the Obama term, coupled with the possible nightmare of President Palin sends up red flags and constant reminders to even the most confident of her foes.

Look, when Robert Reich starts taking new notice of Sarah Palin, I start taking new notice of Sarah Palin, no matter how sick I am of her. She got votes in 2008 as a possible successor to answer The Red Phone.At the end of the day, I just hope I'm right about this: Lost in the discussion beyond the notion of whether she has the requisite tools to preside over a nervous nation of over 300 million inhabitants, is the argument that, in my opinion, she doesn’t really even want that job. No matter what Ms. Palin indicates through those shiny red lips, she has the best of all worlds right now. Her opinion is relevant as long as she can remain exactly where she is for the foreseeable future. A thrashing defeat in a primary or presidential election turns her almost instantly into Mike Huckabee with looks and charisma. And she is shrewd, smart and politically savvy enough to know it.

I think.

This is her finest hour. The ideal deal. Getting paid really huge and having non-stop camera crews. Speeches amidst adoration. Cameras flashing. Being asked what she thinks on TV. Massive luxury tour buses. Posh hotels. No wars to fight, no cabinet to manage, no electorate to answer to, no budget to balance, no State of the Union speech.

No, Professor Reich, I must respectfully disagree: Sarah Palin won’t be running for president in 2012, 2016 or 2020. I’ll wager you a beer; because adulation – not the ever-stressful, always important, often thankless chores of governing – is what pulls her trigger. And although the winter sunlight wanes here, an Alaska TV star illumines the fact that, like it or not, redefining the mainstream is exactly where Sarah Palin has her crosshairs set.

Guest Blog by Sam Rhodes

:Deficit Boogeyman and Jobs

2008 Nobel Prize winner for economics Paul Krugman, who has authored 20 books and more than 200 papers on the subject, offered an enlightening viewpoint on another aspect of spoon-fed fear in The New York Times in February.

In a sudden hysteria that could be likened to swine flu on many levels, Washington now has a chorus of hand-wringing-fear-filled politicos belting out a song of despair. And it now appears this choir has warbling voices from all corners of political ideology.

This unlikely acapella emanates from a bizarre belief that there is no time like the present to lower budget deficits. While I am no Krugman (who is?) a simple checkbook balancing approach and a look into the past while analyzing the present could reel in these Nervous Nellies if they just take the time to stop and think.

Checkbook: If my wife Karen and I are out of a job and private sector jobs are stymied, where can we hope to find relief? As bad as the budget deficit choir hates to admit it; government. But if government stops creating jobs by cutting spending through deficit reductions, well, I think you get the picture: How Now Brown Cow?

History Past: Hardly a word can be mentioned about the current economic mess in the world without talk of The Great Depression. Actually, many Americans wrongly believe that this event unfurled during October of 1929. Black Tuesday was not The Great Depression. One must analyze a time line of events in the run up to and some years after 1929 to understand this beast we fear. And to say that WWII was the silver bullet that saved the world from economic ruin? Wash your mouth out with soap.

In 1934, 5 years before America entered WWII, Sweden became the first nation to recover fully from the Great Depression. It followed a policy of Keynesian deficit spending. And actually, America’s economy improved greatly in 1934, when unemployment “fell” to 21.7 percent—over twice today’s level. Furthermore, America passed major legislation in 1933, 1934 and 1935: Congress authorized creation of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Farm Credit Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the National Recovery Administration, the Public Works Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority. Congress passed the Emergency Banking Bill, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the Farm Credit Act, the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Truth-in-Securities Act. These government agencies all created thousands of jobs for a very unemployed nation, not to mention cleaning up a very dirty house of unbridled corruption and government payola.

In 1936, deficit spending aided a phenomenal record of 14 percent growth. Roosevelt errantly cut back on deficit spending, worried about balancing the budget, causing the economy to slip back into a recession in 1938. In 1939, FDR began deficit spending that halted the slide of the economy. It resulted in some massive growth numbers. Roosevelt’s average growth of 5.2 percent during the Great Depression is even higher than the Reagan administration’s vaunted 3.7 percent history of economic growth in its highest years.

History Present: I am of the opinion that without jobs, none of President Obama’s—or America’s—agenda to rebuild an America with hope based on change will come to pass in the history books of our future.

Speaking of hope, one President in America has a sextant he is using to guide workers on a course to a jobs creation voyage to steer America out of its current doldrums. His name? Rich Trumka. The AFL-CIO Jobs Initiative

is that ship. And this vessel of hope must be staffed with strong, sea-worthy sailors from labor, unafraid of storms and a stomach for a broadside. He has one of those old salts he needs by his side in this fight in AFSCME ’s President Jerry McEntee, who last month climbed aboard the AFL-CIO jobs ship and called on his members to do likewise. “Federal action is needed to keep our economy from slipping back into the ditch. That is why a robust investment in the vital public services we need during tough times must be a part of federal jobs legislation. Too many services in communities across the country are being cut to the bone. State and local governments need help and they need it now.”

Both of these great Presidents are mobilizing their memberships around a simple fact: No jobs; no America. And, as history has proven, a dose of deficit spending with an emphasis on job creation has a great track record.

Oh, and for those who say “What about Italy with its current debt of 105.8% of GDP

?” Take another look. Italy currently ranks above 26 other European countries in GDP. Maybe all this hand-wringing, worrisome stuff about deficit spending is just wasted time.

But I’m not the expert. I’ll defer to Paul Krugman to finish this piece with the main point of this viewpoint.

Krugman: “The point is that running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s is actually the right thing to do. If anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more than it is to create jobs…Thanks to deficit hysteria, Washington

now has its priorities all wrong: all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there’s hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price.” Paul Krugman

Sam RhodesASEA/AFSCME Local 52, AFL-CIO Anchorage, AK

Fear: It's All Over Us Sam Rhodes

When was the last instance in which you made a good decision based on fear?

Terrorism derives all its power—100%—through fear. And every time we are hesitant to travel or we sensationalize graffiti or we grind to gridlock politically because of difficult public policy choices, we play to the strong hand in the card game of fear.

Fear did not lead us to the good things we have come to know as a democracy. Maybe we need to get a grip on the fact that democracy is not some magic medicinal enema for stuffing up the wayward rectums of the world’s diverse ideologies.

We do not make ourselves or any of the rest of the world safer by forceably spreading unwanted democracy. Its freedoms cannot continue to be viewed as a one-size-fits-all warm, fuzzy sweater to keep everyone safe, happy and harmonious, when its tarnished intentions have for generations proven imperialistic.

But democracy is still sold to an ideologically charged world public in that fashion. And in that context, it always disappoints rather than anoints. Because our bodacious insistence that democracy— always conscripted by a cadre of transluscent profiteers from America—must reign supreme in the Middle-East and around the world is not only fool-hardy, tired old rhetoric; it douces a flammable flash-point fuel on a raging fire of ideological hatred toward this nation.

Hope has lead us to believe that change in the war-worn public policy of fear would occur sooner rather than later in the forthcoming days ahead. But early indications in this particular aspect of the fear realm point toward more business as usual and business involvement in the democracy peddling game.

Fear's Ongoing Rein

If you think fear is not a very hot topic, simply conduct a search utilizing “fear” as the keyword.

I did this just today. I was interested to know what I might find if I searched The New York Times because like many readers around the world, I consider that publication the newspaper of record. To me newspapers still matter in a very big way. But that is another blog topic for another day.

When I hit the search button I discovered 35 stories related to fear in today’s The New York Times. A look in the past 30 days revealed over 90 fear-related articles. And over the last 12 months, over 10,000 stories were published in the context of fear. From worries in Haiti to concerns in China; from gastronomic garlic fears to health care fears over a public option. A couple of days ago this story appeared about an evangelical church in Memphis embracing and sponsoring a mixed martial arts academy as a heavenly haven whose motto proclaims: “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”

We’re scared alright; is it any wonder?

Michael Moore long ago made this astute observation with a smart and humorous satire on the history of America. Collaborating with South Park creator Matt Stone in his 2002 documentary epic, Bowling for Columbine, Moore adeptly makes a daunting case for the manner in which fear has been deeply ingrained in our American psyche.

I have chosen to expound on what Michael Moore aptly proved as this self-evident truth: America has a long love affair with empirically posturing itself. Before Moore, such noted historians and essayists as Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky and the late Howard Zinn published volumes of works dedicated to these ominous principles.

Maybe all those mighty glory days of bellicose self-proclamations as the pre-eminent ”World Super Power” led America down this perilously self-destructive path.

Change? Don’t get your panties in a wad. Centuries of pillage and plunder and profiteering won’t soon be erased. Too many hogs are lined up at that trough. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace is a larger notion than just a book title; it’s a long-ingrained way of life.

Jessica SternTerror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill

9/11: A noteworthy time to read a brilliant insight on atrocities of terror from the Middle East to right here in the USA. Based on her vast research, Jessica Stern lucidly explains how terrorist organizations are formed by opportunistic leaders who—using religion as both motivation and justification—recruit the disenfranchised. She depicts how moral fervor is transformed into sophisticated organizations that strive for money, power, and attention.